Eight per thousand

Eight per thousand (otto per mille) is an Italian law under which Italian taxpayers devolve a compulsory 8 ‰ = 0.8% (eight per mil, i.e. per thousand) from their annual income tax return to an organised religion recognised by Italy or, alternatively, to a state-run social assistance scheme. On the IRE form, people optionally declare a recipient. If they do not, the law stipulates that this undeclared amount be distributed among the normal recipients of such taxes in proportion to what they have already received from explicit declarations. In the period from 1990 to 2007, 42.7% expressed a choice, on average. A similar scheme has been introduced in 2006 to fund entities that carry out socially relevant activities (for example, non-profit, scientific research) with five per thousand (5 ‰). The relations between Italy and the religious confessions in its territory can be traced back to the Statuto Albertino of 1848, which applied first to the Kingdom of Sardinia and then to the Kingdom of Italy. Its first article declared the "Roman Catholic Apostolic religion" the only state religion and granted legal toleration to all other religious confessions then present. Under the Lateran treaties of 1929, which were incorporated in the 1948 Constitution of the Italian Republic, the State paid a small monthly salary, called the congrua, to Catholic clergymen as compensation for the nationalization of Church properties at the time of the unification of Italy. This ended on 31 December 1986, with the entry into force, as a result of a 1984 agreement between the government and the Holy See of the "eight per thousand" system. As of 2015 there are 12 possible beneficiaries of the tax: The State itself Catholic Church Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches Seventh-day Adventist Church Assemblies of God in Italy Union of Italian Jewish Communities Lutheran Evangelical Church in Italy Baptist Evangelical Christian Union of Italy Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy Apostolic Church in Italy Italian Buddhist Union Italian Hindu Union In addition an agreement has been signed with the Jehovah's Witnesses, but it has not yet received parliamentary ratification.